Having converted the minotaurs into wedding attire, the troubleshooters of Selversgard turn back towards the village. Shev travels far ahead, no doubt out of his excitement about the upcoming wedding, leaving the rest of us at something of a disadvantage when the weather takes a turn for the worse.
Miya: How do we know it’s a bad storm? The Treants have f***ed off into a cave. GM: Can I get a Survival check from somebody? Arram: You COULD but Shev isn’t here.
We huddle under an overhang without even the benefit of a giant riding rat to huddle against. At least Prestidigitation and Ember Pots get us warm and dry-ish, so we won’t be reenacting any Jack London stories.
Shev’s player: ? Gonno’s player: To Build A Fire. A short story about someone who repeatedly fails his Survival checks.
A conversation is had about adventurers, and exactly what kind of mental damage makes running off to clear out a nest of vampires sound like a good idea.
Skave: At least contracting vampirism might solve the problem of my 30 year lifespan? How am I supposed to get anything done in three decades, is what I want to know. Gonno: *tactfully not mentioning that he has a potential lifespan of hundreds of years* You could always take a run at the Starstone. Arram: As I understand it, if you survive it you either become a god or the servant of a god. Is that the kind of immortality you actually want? Gonno OoC: I’m picturing exactly what kind of principles Skave The God would embody. Unnecessarily Large Explosions, probably. He’d get on well with Nethys at least.
Miya’s pregnancy has started to show - since she’s non-human, there’s a chance of complications. At least she’s told her husband about them.
Miya: There’s a non-zero chance of kits instead of babies.
We hear somebody yelling for help out in the torrential rain - after some mental calculations about the odds of a second Leucrotta lurking in the woods around here, we investigate.
Gonno: Hopefully not another idiot wizard from the Twilight Academy. Arram: Well I’m good, I’m a sorcerer from the Twilight Academy. Gonno OoC: Somebody needs to investigate the water supply at the Academy, because at the rate that their students go mad, wander off into the woods, or express other antisocial behaviour, I suspect the lead pipes are corroding Miya OoC: There is likely an eldritch horror in the Attic and the basement, the lunch lady is a lich and the whole thing can be described as Creepy Spooky Haunted and Hydrocolonic.
There’s two human men, one of whom has carelessly misplaced an arm, being carried by the other. Both need immediate medical aid.
Arram: Anything following you we need to know about? Chist: I.. I think we got away from it? Arram: Just in case you didn’t, what was ‘it’?
Alveson and his less-mangled friend are from the Order of the Nail - Hell-knights. Hopefully they don't notice the way Gonno tenses up, since there’s no way the hell-knights have forgotten about his wife who escaped Cheliax, and the Order of the Nail are one of the most hard-line of the lot.
Arram OoC: They’re basically everybody that’s ever played a paladin wrong.
Apparently the Hell-knights were out here to open a Gate, so they could escort a pair of Devils back to their base. This is nothing particularly unusual for Hell-knights, but it wasn’t the devils they expected that came through.
Chist: There were four of them - they were humanoid. But blue. Arram and Skave: …. Chist: And covered in chains! Arram: I was just about to ask that. Miya: Welp, we’re stuffed.
It’s hardly surprising that four Chain Devils was two much for two hell-knights.
Chist: It wasn’t just the two of us, we came out here with five others. All: …. Chist: I think the mage got three of them with a Flame Blast. Arram: Yes yes, very good, it’s just that I believe Chain Devils have Regeneration.
At least the Gate closed after the remaining Clive Barker ripoff ripped off his various limbs. Leaving an open doorway to Hell seems like a bad thing. Going after four Chain Devils would also be a bad thing. We decamp in a hurry, but note as we leave that the still-ambulatory Hell-knight has a glowing rune painted on his chest. Apparently that was part of the Gate-opening ritual.
Arram: Well. That’s not good.
None of us have the Erase spell to sever the connection. And while Miya will happily flay the skin off him ( ‘Create Treasure Map’ as Skave puts it ) we don’t know if the rune connects his body or his lifeforce to the gate. It’s likely that killing him wlll sever the connection, but messing with the connection will likely kill him even if we don’t want to. And it’s possible the devils can use the rune to track Chist down, and possibly use him to force the Gate open again.
Miya: It’s probably quicker to go home. Chist: Where’s home? Miya: Thattaway. Or thataway? Give me a second. Arram: Selversgard. Chist: I haven't heard of it. Arram: It’s small. Small enough that four chain devils could kill everybody there.
It’s a ten-day trip south to reach the Order of the Nail’s keep. Although if we can get back to the boats we left on the riverbank on the trip down, we can go downriver much faster than on foot. Very much faster, given what the weather is likely doing to the river’s flow.
Arram: Shev is probably going overland back to Selversgard anyway, on the All-terrain Rat Express.
The problem is finding where we left the boats, in horrendous weather, at night, while trying to avoid pursuit. We recamp. After force feeding him some healing potions, Alveron comes to, and confirms that the head wizard with their party screwed up, and opened the gate into a Chain Devil slave camp.
Skave: …. Well, that’s the worst possible wrong number. Arram: I feel beholden to suggest mounting a rescue mission. But that is well outside our capabilities. Miya: So we’re going to leave that to the Hell Knights who screwed up in the first place. Alveson: That’s fair, that’s really quite fair.
Alveson also confirms that the rune is connected to the gate.
Alveson: Well, we can resolve that. But it will require a sharp knife and a great deal of pain for my colleague here. Miya: Oh good, the sensible solution works. Arram: Hold still, I’m just going to do some Subdual Damage on you with this blunt instrument. Alveson: Ah, no, that won’t work. He needs to be conscious to will away the connection as we physically sever it. Skave: … how big is this rune again? GM: Most of his chest. All: … Miya: Well, I suppose we could use Arram’s Acid Splash, but either way this is going to SUCK.
Skave has to do the flaying. At least Chist is tied down and gagged as the Ysoki peels off his skin, piece by piece. He even stays conscious for the entire procedure, which takes nine rounds. No doubt because Skave’s paw is shaking a bit.
Skave: You are *exceptionally* lucky you ran into me. All: …. Skave: …Us, I mean Us.
At least the procedure seems to have worked, and when the sun rises we can hurry to the boats. Alveson isn’t going to be much use, sans spellbook and arm, but at least Chist can use that magical boar spear we found, and we still have the spellbook we found in the Leucrotta lair.
Arram: Oh gods, that thing - I warn you, the contents have a particular… flavour. Probably all necromancy, and we’re pretty sure it’s bound in human skin.
Arram: If that necromancer’s spellbook had Erase in it I’m going to be very embarrassed.
When we reach the boats, something is sitting on one of the boats combing her hair.
Miya: Don’t be Fae, Don’t be Fae, Don’t be Fae… GM: It’s Fae.
Arram: Morning Naiad: Oh! Good morning! Are these yours? Arram: Yes, actually. Naiad: I hope you don’t mind - I was merely using one as a place to sit. Arram: Not a problem - but you might want to make yourself scarce. There’s a bunch of chain devils on the loose, and some of us have already run afoul of them. Naiad: Oh, that is NOT good. Arram: Quite. You might want to let everybody that needs to, know.
The Naiad leaves, without turning its Beguiling Aura on Arram or the rest of us.
Skave: Well, I’ve learned something - Arram has to be gay. Miya OoC: He’s a sorcerer, his Charisma is ungodly high.
Arram: It’s all werewolves or Fae around here and personally I’d rather deal with the Fae. Miya: Fae, werewolves or big f***ing spiders.
We leave a message for Shev in a waterproof sack, phrased ambiguously enough that the Chain Devils won’t immediately know which way we went, or that Selversgard is upriver, in case Shev comes looking for us when we don’t turn up. Unfortunately we’re attacked by a giant fish while we travel downstream.
Skave: *shakes Arram* SET IT ON FIRE, SET IT ON FIRE!
Miya gets engulfed.
Miya: Tell my husband I love him! Assuming I actually die!
Of course this about when Shev catches up with us, and sees us finally subduing the monstrous stickleback.
Shev: Pull that on board, that’s good eating! Arram: Good luck with that, it’s bigger than the boat! Also it’s eaten most of Miya’s arm, we should probably do something about that.
We camp on the far side of the river to make things more difficult for the Chain Devils, just in case. Shev also has a camp oven that doesn’t produce smoke or light, which is also helpful in our current situation. For some reason the forest on this side of the river has been replaced with fens - fortunately we can find a dry hollow to camp in.
Skave: Keep an eye out for leeches… I need them for alchemy ingredients. Gonno: Hopefully we’re all smart enough to avoid throat leeches.
And Shev never sleeps on the ground anyway - he has two hanging tents with excellent camouflage. Hopefully we won’t wake up with the rest of us dead.
Shev’s player: Won’t be the first time I’ve slept through combat.
Once again, the party is fortunate that Vokk the Giant Riding Rat is a light sleeper - something is happening near the boats.
Shev: Animal companions exist to show us up.
Shev: I’m pretty sure a gunshot is a suitable alarm, but I don’t want to wake the others up if I don’t have to.
It’s a giant dragonfly nymph, settling itself to ambush us in the morning. Shev returns to the camp to prepare breakfast - we can deal with it in the morning.
Shev: Welcome to camping in this forest. Miya: Giant insects, arachnids, and Fae, oh my! Shev (upbeat): Don’t forget the werewolves!
Rather more problematic is that something eats half the giant nymph before dawn - and Shev didn’t see or hear what did it. (interesting fact -aquatic insect nymphs are called naiads)
Shev: Well, whatever it was it only ate half of it, so it’s not hungry.
The rest of the trip to the lake and the Hellknight keep is uneventful - Shev rides Vok in the river while the rest of us continue in the boat. Arrival at the keep is uneventful too - nobody challenges us as we approach. In fact the entire keep is still and silent. This is ominous. The boot sticking out under a bush is more so. It probably wasn’t the bush that beat the boot owner's head in.
Arram: It might be a Whomping Wisteria
Whatever did it left all his gear here, including magical armour. And Chist identifies the body as one of the full Hell-knights. He didn’t even have his weapon out.
Skave OoC: Preliminary cause of death… murder-hoboes. Miya OoC: But we’re murder-hoboes!
No we’re not - we haven't even looted the corpse yet. Around the corner some unfortunate woman has been pinned to the wall by multiple primitive javelins. And the portcullis has been jammed open with a man-sized boulder. Alveson identifies her as the head mage at the keep.
Arram: I’m really hoping whoever did this isn’t here anymore, to be honest. Can we make sure we move anything that’s been spilled on the floor? So we have a clear run for the door if we have to.
Neither Chist or Alveson recognise the make of the javelins, so it probably wasn't some group the Hell-knights annoyed recently. Perhaps some Orc warparty out of the Cinderlands? On the other hand, Miya recalls that the nearby town of Biston had a major problems with an infestation of Troglodytes recently, and there is certainly a smell in the keep that Vok does NOT like. Alveson finds the body of his brother among the dead, and is understandably distressed.
We attempt to clear the portcullis - and hear rustling in the bushes. Shev takes aim.
Miya: Do we want to call out a warning? ‘Show yourselves or be considered bandits’
The warning is somewhat pointless - Troglodytes don’t speak Common. They speak Draconic.
Troglodyte: *in Draconic* This is our land now. Arram: We WERE here to ally with the Hell-knights to fight devils. Troglodyte: FIGHT devils? They SUMMON devils! Arram: Yeah sometimes it doesn’t go to plan. Troglodyte: You side with Hellknights? Arram: Yeah, these two, at least - I like them. Troglodyte: KILL THEM ALL Shev: I don’t speak Draconic but the tone suggests ‘Talks have broken down’.
After the fight, which we survive and they don’t, we search the corpses and find a few lucky talismans their shaman gave them.
Gonno: I don’t think they worked.
Although we don’t have any reason to feel smug about our victory - we don’t know how many troglodytes the Hell-knights managed to kill before they were overwhelmed.
Shev: I actually got a second shot off before it misfired! Miya: Clearly Erastil is pleased with you.
Miya: And now we have to deal with the Chain Devils by ourselves.
At least it’s only a day more travel to the lakeside fishing town of Biston. It has a population of over 200.
Gonno: If I knew we were coming to the big city I’d have got a shopping list from the wife.
There are quite a few Hell-knights at their building in the town - it appears they are mustering. That’s helpful - maybe they’re in the mood for a snipe hunt. Their leader Esteria receives Chist and Alveson’s report, and invites all of us up to her office, a small and tasteful room (the shrine to Asmodeus in one corner notwithstanding).
Esteria: Leave your rat in the stables, they’ll feed and water it. Shev: Are they familiar with giant riding rats? Esteria: They’d better be.
Apparently Biston and the outpost haven't been the only targets of troglodyte attacks in the area. She really can’t spare the men to deal with chain devils as well, even though she acknowledges we really aren’t equipped to deal with one, let alone four. On the other hand, if we help her with the troglodyte issue… at least she has a map of the tunnels the hero Biston used to attack the troglodytes from behind, back before he had the town named after him. Vok can confirm that the tunnel only smells slightly of Troggies. On the other hand, it also smells of Something Else. We head in anyway - we have the advantage of Darkvision that the Hellknights don't. Hopefully we won’t be down here too long - our friends and family might start wondering where we are by the end of the second week.
Before we find any cave dwelling lizard-types, we find a 60ft deep pit, lined with spikes, and including a noteworthy number of naked impaled dwarves.
Arram: How long have they been there? GM: Well, they’re not… Arram: Liquified?
It is possible the dwarves slid down the shaft we descended, and straight into the pit trap, but that wouldn’t explain why they’re naked.
Arram: Hey Shev, we need you to climb down this hole full of naked dwarves. Shev: Fffffffffff- Arram: Don’t worry, they’re dead.
Miya: To be fair we haven’t actually *checked* they’re dead.
They are dead, but they’re not dwarves. They might be some other subterranean race, like the sadistic Dero.
Gonno OoC: Richard Sharpe Shaver’s paranoid schizophrenia has a lot to answer for.
It’s also not clear who or why somebody cut their throats and dumped them in the pit.
Shev: We’re here to kill trogs, let's go kill trogs.
We find some trogs - guarding the ends of a rope bridge. Each has a gong.
Arram: The monk can bullrush one, and when the other one hits the gong you can fire your gun to cover the noise.
Gonno does, indeed, run up and push the first Troglodyte into the chasm. The rest of the party use a variety of ranged attacks, of the quieter variety. We are now in position to launch a sneak attack on a village of troglodyte non-combatants.
Gonno OoC: And here was me thinking we WEREN’T playing murder-hoboes.
Unfortunately, Gonno and Miya, both completely fail to notice that the party is being snuck up on from behind. Despite being at the back of the party precisely to stop this sort of thing happening.
Miya OoC: I’m definitely going to retire and raise kids, things keep trying to eat me.
Gonno doesn’t even notice Miya has been dragged off until a second tentacle wraps around his own neck. Fortunately the rest of the party actually glance over their shoulders and save the pair, without actually alerting the troglodytes with the sound of combat, or wheezing after the Oread and Foxmaid are released. Sneaking closer, we overhear the troglodyte leadership having some kind of argument with drow. This is a perfect opportunity for Arram to cast Web over the entrance to the chamber, and yell, in Draconic, “Our objectives are achieved! Slay the rest of the Troglodytes!”.
GM: Well, you’ve done something very smart Miya’s player: Are you sure you’re talking about the right game?
The drow and troglodytes promptly start murdering each other. We wait to see who survives - the drow priestess is a contender by the look of it. Although she probably wasn’t *planning* on killing one of her own compatriots with an area effect spell, but he was male and who knows with drow.
Arram’s player: We’ve just made the GM roll attacks against his own NPCs for 30 minutes. Shev’s player: Sorry not sorry.
Killing a member of her own party was probably a tactical error, since the Troggie king follows up by cutting her in half. He’s also bright enough to start wondering why the supposed drow treachery was yelled in his language, and spots us waiting for more free XP. Still, now it’s 6-to-1 odds in our favour.
Gonno OoC: Although after watching him bisect that elf, we probably shouldn’t have closed to melee range.
We find some documents proving the drow were conspiring to use the troglodytes as an organised threat to civilisations on the surface. Also evidence that quite a few drow have been through here. Miya has Arram leave a note - written in Draconic, in the drow’s handwriting, pinned to the late king’s eyesocket “Death to those that betray the Drow”.
Unfortunately we then have to sneak back out past the troglodyte village.
Miya: We pick up the sorcerer and leg it.
After all these detours, we finally start heading home towards Selversgard.
Skave: Brother. This had better be the best wedding ever.
It’s also a relief that the chain devils haven’t found Selversgard, but we have a lot to tell the mayor and militia anyway, and a lot of apologies for everybody that's been worried about us. Certainly nothing really major happens for the next nine months, apart from the setting up of a Warrenguard by the ratfolk.
Arram: The first I’m doing after we report to the Mayor is collapse into the bed for 24 hours, after all that bulls***t.
GM: Shev, would you care to make a Diplomacy roll? Shev: I CAN but it’ll be abysmal. GM: Would you prefer your brother address the Council? Shev: He’s just as bad!
Although one discovery the ratfolk make while excavating is a hidden tunnel connecting the sewer, a hidden dock north of town, and the boarded-up Tolland Manor in the middle of Selversgard owned by a now extinct family. The rumours of a haunt are one reason it hasn’t been reoccupied. A bigger mystery is who would need a smuggling tunnel - Selversgard has no tariffs.
To everybody’s surprise, Gonno & Galiante are already expecting a second child. Apparently, despite being a tiefling and a part-elemental, they are really compatible. Miya’s sister-in-law moves in as a nanny for her & Falx’s apparently human son.
Gonno: If you ever want privacy again I know where a house is going unused.
Alternatively, we can use Tolland Manor as a proper school building - Arram is certainly willing and able to pay the requisite 5000gp to refurbish it, and it's not like potential undead are going to worry somebody who thinks the Twilight Academy is a fine educational institution. Arram is now one of Selversgard’s most eligible bachelors (certainly since the other PCs are all married now) which may explain why that teenager we rescued two years back is inexpertly trying to seduce him.
Skave is a father again as well - but tragically his wife didn’t survive the birth. Even magical healing can only go so far. He’s emotionally ill-equipped to deal with this. So now he has three ratlings to raise, and a wet nurse to find.
GM: Miya might be able to do it. Miya: I have seen rat teeth, so no. Especially if I have to deal with fox teeth as well.
Shev finds a bride as well, although is at a loss about what to do next - as far as social adjustment goes he’s not much better than his brother.
Miya: I’m afraid my perspective isn’t going to be very useful.
All these new children and new marriages (especially to forceful wives like the ratwoman Ranger Cidi) are good reasons to reduce the amount of stabbing gribbly-monster-stabbing we’ve been doing. What do we look like, adventurers?
Miya: Something has tried to kill me *every year*.
Miya sets up a dojo to train up the Selversgard Militia, but trying to get the council to actually fund the militia is like squeezing blood from a stone. At least we have all that loot from the troglodyte and drow incident to sell, and supply a proper armory and probably pay for a militia too. And maybe if we promote more business connections with the cities downriver, we might have an economy large enough to support actual taxation.
I've served on two juries, a criminal trial, and a civil trial. The criminal trial resulted in a not guilty verdict.
I was surprised to be selected for the civil trial. It was a minor fender-bender, but the plaintiff was claiming severe back injuries. I figured that the plaintiff's attorneys would reject me, but that didn't happen. When they asked if I would have any issues with a large judgement, I briefly included the words "tort reform" in my answer, which got a smile from the defendant's attorney, but only a slight look of confusion on the plaintiff's attorney's face.
Talking after the trial to the defense attorney, he assumed that jury foreman was either going to be me or the high school science teacher. In deliberations, I had turned it down, and the science teacher became foreman. The case involved a medical component,and I was also surprised that they left a retired nurse on the jury. Plaintiff was asking $12.5 million, we deliberated over initial medical costs (a little less than $8000), or nothing. We went with nothing.
The plaintiff's attorneys were far from the smartest in the room. I found out that they were the seventh legal team on the case, and that they turned down a half a million from the defendant's insurance. The original medical bills had already been paid,and if we had chosen that, the plaintiff's lawyers would have been able to get their legal fees paid by the defense.
I've only been summed for jury duty once, and they seated no juries that day so I got off free. I may be on the "scientist" blacklist (no one wants intelligent, rational jurors who are smarter than the lawyers).
We had a gentleman come in here yesterday looking for a 1963 Americana Encyclopedia. The library doesn't keep any encyclopedia over ten years old at the very maximum. He went on to tell me that he was in that edition and wanted to show his granddaughter. He was the only man to drive a tank through the Berlin Wall. How cool is that?
Went to a city park here in Seattle, one that abuts the elementary/middle school my kids went to. I hadn't been there in several years, but my daughter goes there often (a friend lives nearby). It seems a beaver or two has taken up residence there, no more than 20 yards from where a creek flows through a culvert and under the railroad into the Sound. They've got a dam in place which we saw (though we saw no beavers), a pond building up behind it, and the area around is transforming into more of a meadow. Would be a fascinating place to do ecological monitoring as the invertebrate species shift with the changing environment.
I haven't introduced selfwilled intelligent magic weapons in any of my campaigns, largely because I and everyone else in my group are really averse to anything that even hints at being able to override a player's control over their characters. And artifacts like that would almost certainly be contentious.
I was told of a campaign back during my wife's college days of two players, one of whom (the male) played an intelligent artifact sword, while the other (the female) played an intelligent artifact scabbard for that sword. While no explicit scenarios were related to me, the comment was, "The humor inherent to the situation was if anything worse than you might imagine."
Which leads to a question: I am told I qualify for a number of those specific levels of Hell. Am I doing timeshares among them? Do I get parted out and have different segments of me in different places simultaneously? Or something else?
Frankly, the most horrific thing I can imagine is the monster overpowers you, and while you are unconscious it implants an egg in you. The larva hatches inside and consumes you from within as it develops, carefully avoiding doing any immediately lethal damage until it is ready to emerge, which could take months or years. There are bits of this concept in the Alien franchise and other sci-fi tales, of course, but it could be done in a fantasy context as well.
This may be a generational thing, but to me Desilu is Desilu Productions, Lucille Ball & husband Desi Arnaz's TV production company. For the sake of us old folks, you might add some bits that come in from that association.
Cancer got a reaction from Pariah in Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
Cancer reacted to Drhoz in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...
Cancer got a reaction from DShomshak in Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
Cancer got a reaction from Ternaugh in And now, for your daily dose of cute...
Cancer got a reaction from Certified in Funny Pics II: The Revenge
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Cancer got a reaction from Christougher in Funny Pics II: The Revenge
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